words of afirmation

I had a great time with my little boy recently when we were writing valentines day poems together. He wanted to write a poem for everybody in our house and we had just discovered all about acrostic poems during school time so we decided to write an acrostic poem for each person. William would tell me all the things he loved or thought was a special quality about each person and I would write them down.

Children often speak straight form the heart. They don’t have a little filter on their brain or their mouth and the words just come tumbling out. What they speak is often the truth and they say it just how it is. Sometimes this can go horribly wrong, like when you are in the supermarket and your child makes a remark about how that man over there looks just like Santa Claus with his belly like a bowl full of jelly! But sometimes it can go so wonderfully right like when William was spilling out wonderful words of love and kindness about his friends and family during our valentines day poem writing activity.

As you can probably gather I love words. Words are powerful and we should use them to build one another up in love, to speak only what is helpful. I remember my mother telling me when I was younger “if you have nothing nice to say then do not say anything at all”.

I love that my little boy was able to come up with so many wonderful things to write about the people he loves and I especially love that he did not say anything negative. He knew that the objective of the poem was to tell us how much he loved us and to say how special we are. To build us up in love and to speak only what is helpful.

So I encourage you to build one another up in love, send someone a little love letter, leave them a sweet comment on social media, don’t just scroll past them but take the time to stop and say hi. I received some sweet words of encouragement recently and it just warmed my heart and soul, put a smile on my face and a spring in my step. Spread the love people!

Like this:

Have you ever found yourself lost in a crowd of people? You are one person among a sea of many faces. It is easy to be overlooked, you can go unseen, unnoticed and people just pass you by. Just another face in a sea of many.

That is how I feel about my birthday. I am a leap year baby, only having my birthday every four years. When it is not a leap year my birthday is not really today or tomorrow just somewhere in between. It goes by overlooked, unseen, unnoticed, it just passes by.

This feeling had settled in my soul without me even realising it. Every time my un birthday would come around I would feel so sad. I thought it was just about turning another year older but it couldn’t be that as life has just got better with each passing year. The feeling was related to the non event of my birthday.

There is still parties and cake and presents and an abundance of love and affection towards me from those that love me but there is still something lingering. My birth date missing from every year is like a constant reminder that I feel overlooked, unseen, unnoticed, passed by. A lie that I have partnered with for so long but not even realizing it.

So many people suffer from feeling this way, we struggle with our sense of identity. We feel lost in the sea of people and are just waiting for somebody to pick us out of the crowd, to stop and take notice.

I am learning the importance of declaring things over myself. If I stand and say that I am lost in the crowd, that I am not important enough to be noticed then I will start to really believe them. Instead I need to stand and declare words of truth over myself, words that bring life.

When the misery of my un birthday began to set in I listened to these words…

…what a mystery that you notice me, in a crowd of ten thousand you don’t miss a thing, you see everything. I am seen and I am known by the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. There is no place that I can go where your love cant find me, no place I can hide that you don’t see. There is no place I can fall that your love cant catch me. You see it all through the eyes of love. When I lose trust still you pursue…. a song by Amanda Cook.

I may be in a crowd of ten thousand but I am still seen. I am still loved, valued, cared for and pursued. Words of affirmation and not of condemnation. Words that remain true through any circumstances in life, on birthdays and un birthdays.